Education: Advanced British Standard
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate Excerpts(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
Clearly, we will not do the latter. It is incredibly important that we design this in such a way that we have the right offer for children with special educational needs and disabilities, those who have been in local authority care and those who have come from particularly disadvantaged homes. That is a clear commitment from the Government.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate (Non-Afl)
Perhaps the noble Baroness can help me. My wife is Polish, and she read in the newspapers recently that Polish is being offered at secondary school level, alongside Latin, as a second language. She was very surprised, and said, having been taught Latin as well as Polish at school, that Polish is more difficult to learn than Latin and just about as useful, which surprised me. Could the noble Baroness advise me on how I should respond?
Baroness Barran (Con)
Maybe it would make sense to talk to the school in question to understand its decision to offer Polish.
Schools: Homophobic Bullying
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate Excerpts(12 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree very much that specialist organisations of the sort to which my noble friend refers can play an important part. I also agree about the dangers to children—and, indeed, to staff—of cyberbullying, which is a growing problem. That is one of the reasons why the Government are proposing measures in the Education Bill to tackle that problem. On faith schools, my note of slight caution to my noble friend is that one has to be very careful in making generalisations about whole categories of school. Nearly one-third of the schools in our country are faith schools. Many of them have outstanding records on behaviour, discipline and their work in promoting community cohesion. However, I agree with my noble friend’s underlying point that one needs as much outside help as one can to tackle these problems thoroughly and consistently.
Lord Mackenzie of Framwellgate
My Lords, does the Minister agree that bullying in schools, as with bullying by newspaper tycoons, needs to be challenged and punished?